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Topic: 5 month old - need help with EASY (Read 150 times)

DD is 5 months old today. She used to be a 3 hour EASY schedule with three 30-45 min naps, then all of a sudden she started changing (stretching out feedings and lengthening afternoon nap, refusing cat nap sometimes, etc.) a week ago. She has become too tired to make her normal bedtime so I have tried moving it up, but I'm not sure if I should let her have a late cat nap or not. The couple times I have tried it, she did not sleep her usual 8-9 hr stretch at night. Below are some sample of our current routine. Note - I usually feed her around 8am because it works better with our daily schedule, but I could feed her right upon waking if that would be helpful, though not preferred.

Hi thereSorry I'm not sure what the problem is? The routine you have is not necessarily "common" at this age but if it is working for you then I'd just continue with it as it is. Commonly at 5 months LOs would have 2 longer naps and a CN but at 6 months they tend to need to drop the CN leaving 2 longer naps. Your LO is doing a shorter nap and a super long nap...overall probably enough sleep and if her mood is okay then maybe just continue as you are?Night sleep looks okay, I'd probably just aim not to let the last A time go past 3hrs, so check the time when she wakes from nap 2 and aim to have her in bed and asleep at/by the 3hr mark and not over.

Thanks for the reply. The issue is that she becomes so overtired in the evening that it is very difficult to get her to bedtime. She would take a nap at 5:30pm if I let her, but it's so close to bedtime. So she is very cranky for the last 1-1.5 hrs in the evening.

I can see why she would have a cat nap at 5.30pm, because of the time she wakes up from her nap. I think if you wan the 6pm bedtime, you need to stay with the grumpy child, as the only way to change it would be to get her up earlier (almost 13hours overnight is very long) & move your day forward to fit a catnap in.

That said in a month or 2 she will probably be old enough to cope with the longer A times without getting grumpy.

At that age my DS2 had a routine of a short morning nap, a 2.5-3hour mid day nap & a short afternooon nap as it fitted around his brother, it was something like wake up 6 am, 8.30 45min , noon 2.5hour nap, 5pm 45min nap & 7.30pm Bedtime. As you can see his night sleep was only around 10.5hours, where as yours is almost 13 hours, so it's a matter of juggling the times.

Maybe be could extend the first A time a bit making it start a little later and hopefully she would sleep longer for it due to being more tired, it looks like she's doing just one sleep cycle in the morning so two would be more restorative. Then the afternoon nap would come later (and be the same length it is) and she wouldn't be so grumpy in the evening before BT. Making the first A time 2hr 30 for instance could bring a 2hr nap instead of 50 mins which would have quite an effect to her mood and how the rest of the day panned out. Even if she didn't nap longer (initially as it can sometimes take a while for the nap to lengthen) then you'd at least move the naps a little later which reduces the last A time by a little.